“What? I see nothing.”
“That humming noise.”
“Oh, that? Prussian bullets. Ah, by-the-by, it is a compliment to your uniform, monsieur; they take you for some one of importance. Well, as I was observing”—
“Your explanation is sufficient, colonel; let us get out of this. Ha, ha! you are a cool hand, colonel, I must say. But your battery is a warm place enough: I shall report it so at headquarters.”
The grim colonel relaxed.
“Captain,” said he politely, “you shall not have ridden to my post in vain. Will you lend me your horse for ten minutes?”
“Certainly; and I will inspect your trenches meantime.”
“Do so; oblige me by avoiding that angle; it is exposed, and the enemy have got the range to an inch.”
Colonel Dujardin slipped into his quarters; off with his half-dress jacket and his dirty boots, and presently out he came full fig, glittering brighter than the other, with one French and two foreign orders shining on his breast, mounted the aide-de-camp’s horse, and away full pelt.
Admitted, after some delay, into the generalissimo’s tent, Dujardin found the old gentleman surrounded by his staff and wroth: nor was the danger to which he had been exposed his sole cause of ire.